Good hygiene is an important part of modern livestock production. By practising good hygiene, you also contribute to ensuring a good disease prevention. Disease prevention covers a number of measures with the purpose of protecting the pig population against disease-causing infection sources, bacteria and viruses.

Disease prevention can be divided into two types:

• External disease prevention where the purpose is to prevent transmission of infection sources to pig populations from the external environment.
• Internal disease prevention where the purpose is to limit and control dissemination in the population.

External disease prevention

External disease prevention focuses on preventing transmission from the external environment. For populations with a health advice agreement, a disease prevention plan must be prepared in accordance with the provisions for disease prevention in herds of cattle and pigs (Executive Order no. 1535 of 12/12/2016). The disease prevention plan must be signed by the practising veterinarian and must be approved by the FVST.
The disease prevention plan must contain a description of the measures taken by the person responsible for the population in order to limit the dissemination of bacteria.

These measures include:

• Entering the herd
• Procedure for entering the herd
• Procedure for leaving the herd
• Procedure for removal of material
• Procedure for removal of equipment form the herd
• Procedure for cleaning of pig house clothes
• Procedure for destruction of material

Corresponding populations must have an ante room where all passing to and from a population can take place.
The ante room must be equipped with facilities such as:

• Washbasin
• Hand soap
• Hand disinfection
• Disposable towels (towels made of fabric may contain a vast number of bacteria)
• Change of clothes (change to work clothes or over clothes to be used in the pig house)
• Change of or cleaning and disinfecting of footwear and equipment

The pig industry has extra focus on hygiene in order to ensure that MRSA 398 is not spread from pig populations to the local community.